What it's like inside a 'Muslims for Kamala Harris' WhatsApp group
Muslim-American organisers for Kamala Harris's presidential campaign are struggling to convince the community to vote for her in yet another indication that the Democratic Party may have lost the Muslim vote, Middle East Eye can reveal.
With just days remaining before the US presidential election, the admissions by several grassroots Muslim-American organisers in a private WhatsApp group corroborate reports that not only is Donald Trump gaining momentum amongst sections of the Muslim and Arab-American community, but that many have already decided to vote for a third-party candidate to hold the Democrats accountable for the US-sponsored Israeli war on Gaza.
'Please remind people that when Trump starts to deport people, the legal immigrants will also be affected'
- Muslims for Kamala Harris WhatsApp group member
Over the past several weeks, MEE has had a front-row seat to discussions and strategies of a group of Muslim volunteers organising for Harris inside one of the many WhatsApp groups set up to help mobilise the community to vote for the current vice president.
But organisers in the group have repeatedly conceded that anger and frustration on the ground is visceral, and convincing Muslim voters to endorse the Democratic nominee is proving difficult, and at times, impossible.
"Unfortunately polls are not looking good and reality on the ground is different," Ahmad Jamal* wrote earlier this week.
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"We will keep trying and advocating but unfortunately [the] campaign had not done enough to earn the votes of Muslims, progressives, Pakistani and gen Zs. Their unconditional support for Israel will cost them this election. I hope and pray I am wrong but writing is on the wall and [the] electoral map is looking very bleak," Jamal added.
In another post late last week, an organiser asked for advice on dealing with a friend who had flipped from Democrat to Republican.
"I was speaking about our phone bank success and my good friend came out to me as a Trump supporter despite being long-time Democrat. Said his views recently changed and favours a stricter approach, especially on topics like abortion and foreign policy but mainly thinks trump will be better in terms of stopping the genocide (citing Biden administration failure to do so). Any ideas here? Or is it not worth my time," Mohamed Usman* wrote.
Fatima Jehangir*, an administrator of the group, replied: "That's just awful. I wouldn't waste my time to be honest."
Talking points
Administrators of the group, which include volunteers as well as former state-level Democratic Party operatives who recently formed the Muslims for Harris Twitter account and Muslim Women for Harris Instagram account, have repeatedly offered talking points and suggestions on how to persuade the community from turning their backs against Harris.
In a document shared by the "leadership team" on 10 October, the group revealed "talking points on why Muslims should vote for Harris, why they should not vote for Jill Stein and Trump's anti-Muslim record".
Included in the talking points was the idea of convincing reluctant voters that Harris as vice president "has no decision-making power to effect change in Gaza currently. The blame for the current US position must lie mainly with Biden and not with Harris."
"Harris hosted the first-ever Eid Al-Adha celebration at her residence, underscoring her respect for Muslim communities. She also met with Muslim leaders in Michigan and Muslim organisations such as Emgage during her campaign."
In another part of the document, the group suggests discouraging those interested in third-party candidate Jill Stein, by referring to her low numbers in the polls, and her alleged "ties to war criminals" like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.
Stein has repeatedly denied these allegations while the US Senate Intelligence Committee found nothing on Stein.
They further accuse Stein of underestimating a return to Trump as president and for opportunistically "using the pain of the Muslim community to garner votes and attention in an election she knows she has not chance of winning".
In the group itself, however, several attempts to debate Harris's failures by members were repeatedly shut down, with organisers calling on members to instead focus on mobilising voters.
"Harris wants to end the war and create a Palestinian state. We have the opportunity to press her on this promise once elected," Bilal Bawadi*, a founder of the group, said.
On other occasions, volunteers posted messages that blamed Palestinians for using the wrong language to convince the Biden-Harris administration to alter its course on the war.
"The word genocide should have never been used from the beginning, and I think its use by the pro-Palestine movement for the last year was not only wrong but also responsible for fuelling the continuation of the war and the suffering by diluting and even contamination [sic] of the message. Therefore I think Harris is 100 percent wise for not using that term," one participant in the group wrote.
This comment from 27 October remains in the group.
Volunteers also routinely found it difficult to explain to each other, let alone to potential voters, how to spin Harris's answers on Gaza.
In early October, Harris was asked what she would do differently than Biden. "Not a thing that comes to mind," she replied.
Like the Democratic Party's strategy, the group's talking points have hinged on demonising Trump, minimising the pro-Israel slant of the Democrats as well as slamming political commentators as outsiders who didn't understand the US political system.
"Also, please remind people that when Trump starts to deport people, the legal immigrants will also be affected. It's not written on our face that we are legal. They will harass us first, ask for papers and will probably jail us before we can prove our legality," Adnan Ibrahim*, wrote.
After a video by Muslim political analyst Sami Hamdi calling on Muslim Americans to vote for a third party went viral in October, one volunteer asked how they might counter his argument to those taken by the argument.
"That man is not a US citizen, he's a foreign national, nor has he studied the US political system, nor will be impacted by the vote, nor does he understand our electoral system, nor does he understand the difference between the US Muslim community and the UK Muslim community," Jehangir*, an admin of the group and co-founder of Muslims for Harris, replied.
"Why are we taking advice from this man on this issue?" Jehangir added.
Struggling for relevance
Since Harris became the Democrat nominee for president, Muslim Americans, like every other demographic, have found it difficult to comprehend what the vice president would bring to the table as president of the United States.
Her continuous flip-flopping on domestic issues as well as her ambiguity on foreign policy have made it additionally difficult for organisers to mobilise on her behalf.
Not only has this particular group battled to convince hesitant voters, but it has also struggled to attract volunteers.
"What’s our goal for membership of this group to get to a critical mass … we are at 79 with 29 days to go .. frankly some of my high school and college groups have more members (and I’m continuing the push there as well)," one volunteer wrote.
By 31 October, the group had moved to 115 members, following concerns of infiltration by troublemakers.
As the struggle for volunteers has dawdled and attempts to create traction on social media have proven futile, the group has watched with disdain as the Trump campaign's momentum with Muslims has grown.
Over the past month, Trump gained the endorsements of Hamtramck’s Amer Ghalib, then Bill Bazzi, the first Muslim and Arab American mayor of Dearborn Heights and a Detroit-area imam. A Pakistan PAC also endorsed Trump in late October, prompting members of the WhatsApp group for Harris, made up of several Pakistan Americans, to launch a set of its own graphics in support of the Democratic nominee.
"Please send to your aunties and uncles. We worked very hard on these," Bilal Badawi* wrote.
When volunteers in the group asked why Harris was not more regularly seen with Muslim-American leaders on stage at rallies or in photo-ops, Badawi replied: “I know for a fact that the Harris-Walz Campaign has been trying to meet with Imams but many have been co-opted by ethnocentrism and fever pitch."
"There’s a lot of religious malpractice, plain old conspiracy theories, and misinformation. I really think we are being out played at the moment by the alt-right and foreign actors," Badawi added, before posting a series of links from social media to show that Harris had met with several community leaders over the past month.
Others, however, noted that aggressive phone banking had yielded positive results. And has managed to change some minds.
"Hello, I am new to the group. I have been phone banking for the last five hours and had several great conversations with undecided/ independent voters and democrats who were planning to sit out this election/ are deeply conflicted about what to do," one volunteer said.
"I shared my experiences as a paediatrician who had the privilege of caring for kids from Gaza and why despite what I have seen and heard, I am still mustering support for the Harris-walz ticket. It helped that I was honest in my own deep disappointment and disillusionment which opened the door to conversation. Everyone I spoke to in the end decided to vote for Harris (including one former Trump voter)."
In a post in the Whatsapp group earlier this week, another volunteer lamented about the number of followers the Muslim for Trump Instagram account has gathered over the past few weeks.
"Who are these people(?) They have many more followers than us," the volunteer said, sharing the Muslims for Trump Instagram account.
"They probably paid for them," another volunteer replied.
*Given that the WhatsApp group was private, MEE has changed the names of organisers to protect their identities.
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